Great food, small-town Alabama hospitality is in their Wheelhouse
Wheelhouse has a full bar with craft cocktails. (Susan Swagler / Alabama News Center)
If you build it, turns out, people will come.
It happened in Opp when local resident Merrill Culverhouse decided his hometown needed a nice place to eat. So, he teamed up with chef Jon Gibson (a friend since childhood) and together, they built Wheelhouse. Today, the restaurant is thriving and, just as importantly, providing jobs and making the community a better place.
Culverhouse had been dreaming of owning a restaurant since college. He had moved back to Opp and was immersed in his career as a pharmacist when he went to a town hall meeting of residents looking to improve Opp. Culverhouse left that meeting thinking a restaurant would be just the thing to not only serve the community but also bring other people in, making Opp a dining destination. That was back in 2017.
“I grew tired of having to go out of town to eat something besides fast food,” he says. “In Opp, like in most small towns, there’s a lot of fried foods. Maybe not-so-healthy things. And we just got tired of that. We would go out of town, and we would see people from Opp everywhere.” Culverhouse wanted that kind of business to stay in Opp. He says he wanted to open a restaurant to “bring people to Opp instead of people leaving the town to go somewhere else.”
Culverhouse’s wife said she would support this dream, but only if Gibson was involved.
Today, Wheelhouse is a regionally popular restaurant specializing in coastal comfort food that ranges from great steaks to Gulf-fresh seafood, from burgers to pizzas all complemented by seasonal, fresh, local produce and fun, craft cocktails.
Culverhouse says Wheelhouse is “flip-flop casual or not. You can come dressed in your finest clothes, or you can come very casual.”
Customers include some people traveling to and from the Gulf coast, but mostly the restaurant draws from a 40-mile radius that includes Crenshaw, Covington and Coffee counties.
“I’ve had customers tell us that they didn’t feel like they were in Opp anymore when they came in here,” Culverhouse says. “They felt like it belonged in New Orleans.” Aside from creating a distinctive space, Culverhouse says he wants his customers, “when they come in, to feel welcomed and at home. I want them to have a good experience.”
This happens in a thoughtfully renovated space that honors the past.
Wheelhouse is on “the Donaldson Block,” which was owned by leading Opp businessman M.E. Donaldson. On Nov. 8, 1923, Donaldson started building the Donaldson Hotel, where the restaurant currently resides. Wheelhouse features several dining spaces within the beautiful, old brick walls including rooms that can offer privacy for business lunches or meetings and a light-filled patio room that invites a lively party and has seen lots of bridal luncheons and birthday celebrations. They can seat 99 people inside and about 50 on the patio.
The local art on the walls is for sale, and exhibiting is free. When a piece in The Gallery sells, they call the artist to come get their money. There’s also a handsome bar in the back. This full-service restaurant with a full bar was “something new for Opp,” Culverhouse says.
The dishes here reflect a global approach to food, a respect for homegrown favorites and a commitment to fresh ingredients from local purveyors.
Gibson brings an eclectic style to his dishes, mixing traditional Southern cuisine with flavors and techniques from California, the Pacific Rim, the American Southwest and even Europe. He’s a classically trained and award-winning chef, entrepreneur, TV personality and World Food Championship competitor. He has worked – and fished – on the East, West and Gulf coasts and brings a lifetime of culinary experience to the table.
His kitchen turns out “Coastal Southern cuisine” and “new American” style dishes, Culverhouse says.
The menu changes every six months to take advantage of what’s fresh and in season. But you can always look for great steaks, fresh Gulf seafood, a solidly good burger and delicious pizza based on a recipe Gibson brought back from Sicily. The pizza, in particular, Merrill says, has been a big hit.
The Wheelhouse Burger, a grilled Angus patty with your choice of cheese, a smoky-sweet mesquite flavor and a sourdough bun, is a bestseller, too. So is the Southern Burger with bacon, pimento cheese and a fried green tomato.
The Tri-Tip Apple Salad with hickory-smoked beef tips, crisp Granny Smith apples, feta, pickled onions and candied Alabama pecans tossed in a white balsamic vinaigrette and served with grilled flatbread, is one of Culverhouse’s personal favorite dishes. “We have really good tacos – birria tacos and fish tacos,” he says. There’s baked feta, French onion soup and a classic Caesar salad. You’ll find a smoked brisket grilled cheese on Texas toast at lunch and NOLA shrimp and grits with blackened, wild-caught shrimp, smoked Gouda and a New Orleans-style barbecue sauce at dinner.
“The desserts are really good, too,” Culverhouse says. “We’ve got a really good white chocolate bread pudding and Key lime pie using a recipe Jon brought from the Florida Keys.”
Culverhouse, a pharmacist who owns Crenshaw Drugs in nearby Luverne, says opening a restaurant was an eye-opening experience.
“It’s a different kind of chaos. I’m used to chaos in pharmacy,” Culverhouse says. “I’m not used to this kind of chaos. It’s fast-paced at times. And me, not being familiar with the restaurant business, it’s totally out of my element. I remember the night we opened. I just stood back there almost in shock at the chaos, but Jon, the chef, said, ‘Don’t worry. This is normal.’ I said, ‘OK. I’ll trust you.’”
Culverhouse’s role at the restaurant is more behind-the-scenes, and he’s fine with that. But he enjoys the customers.
“I like to talk to people,” he says. “I like to go table-to-table and talk. My dad was a big talker. I’m a big talker.” He knows a lot of the customers but not all. “There’s a lot of people I’ve never met. … If you look in the parking lot, there are tags from all over, usually.”
Culverhouse says deciding upon a name for the restaurant was one of the hardest parts of creating Wheelhouse.
One reason they decided upon it goes back to simply wanting to make their community a better place. The railroad played a huge part in the founding of Opp, and “wheelhouse,” in railroad terms, is a device that allows train cars to turn around or switch tracks. It’s the same thing both Culverhouse and Gibson were trying to accomplish with their restaurant – giving their community a new direction, making it a better place to work, live, play and raise a family.
Culverhouse says Wheelhouse has always been about more than just a restaurant.
“The main goal is to help our city and to provide some jobs.” Many of the people who work at Wheelhouse have been there from the beginning – through COVID and out the other side.
“I didn’t want to put it anywhere else because I’m from Opp,” he says. “Opp desperately needed some jobs, and I’m providing about … 14 jobs, and the people make a living wage.”
He says he’s most proud of creating a place for his community to enjoy.
“We’re providing a service for our customers. We host Rotary Club every Wednesday. We’ve had live music on the patio. So, it’s a little bit of an entertainment venue. Not that often, but it’s a good place for people to come. We have people from out of town that meet here for business all the time. It serves the community.”
Wheelhouse in Opp
Wheelhouse has put Opp on the dining map. (Susan Swagler / Alabama News Center)
105 East Hart Ave.
Opp, Alabama 36467
https://www.wheelhouseopp.com/
Hours:
Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Closed Sunday and Monday
Susan Swagler has written about food and restaurants for four decades, much of that time as a trusted restaurant critic. She shares food, books, travel and more at www.savor.blog. Susan is a founding member and past president of the Birmingham chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International, a philanthropic organization of women leaders in food, wine and hospitality whose members are among Alabama’s top women in food.
